ONE of France’s pre-eminent chefs, Bernard Loiseau managed to combine the modernising thrust of nouvelle cuisine and the concern for lighter eating with a solid sense of country tradition, or what the French call the terroir. His death illustrates the terrible pressures on those working at the top of his profession, where burdensome business interests ride on one man’s creativity and perfectionism.

It has become a familiar pattern: massive financial and human investment to establish a top restaurant, and then the necessary spin-offs to keep afloat — television appearances, books, further restaurants, consultancies — and all driven by the need to generate revenue without sacrificing standards. Everything here depends on one man’s reputation and Loiseau had seen his begin to slip — or, at least, to slip in the eyes of those twin arbiters of French culinary glory, the Gault Millau and Michelin guides.

In the new edition of the former, his score had just fallen from 19 out of 20 to 17; in the latter, he had kept his crucial three-star rating, but there was talk of demotion in 2004. Debate about Loiseau’s motives for killing himself has been intense and emotional, but one could find no starker illustration of the paradoxes involved in this business devoted to pleasure, particularly as Loiseau’s image was so much that of the genial bon vivant.

Loiseau was born in Chamalières, a small town in the Auvergne, in 1951. His father was a salesman. Having picked up a love of cooking from his Ardèche-born mother, he began at 17 his apprenticeship in the kitchens of the Troisgros brothers, whose three-star Lyonnais-style restaurant in Roanne can safely be considered that town’s main glory.

He then went as chef to La Barrière de Clichy and La Barrière Poquelin (1973- 75) under Claude Verger, whose creative use of vegetables would also become one of Loiseau’s hallmarks. Loiseau began working at La Côte d’Or in the small Burgundy town of Saulieu in 1975. This establishment, which Loiseau would make his own (he bought the premises in 1982), was synonymous with one of France’s legendary chefs, Alexandre Dumaine. Close to the N7 road taken by holidaymakers bound for the Côte d’Azur, it had become an obligatory stop for the gourmet traveller: “Paris- Dumaine: 256 kilometres,” they would say in the 1950s. The restaurant had declined, but Loiseau was to restore its lustre and expand its business.

The first Michelin star came in 1977, the second in 1981, and the third in 1991. While continuing to pay homage to his predecessor, Loiseau made a name for himself with his intense flavours and innovative reworking of traditional combinations.

Frogs’ legs with parsley juice and cream of garlic was one of his signature dishes. He was famed for his refusal to use fat, wine or flour in his sauces. Instead, he achieved thickness and concentration of flavour using natural meat stock or pureed vegetables. The product, as he used to say, was king, and it had to be the best. Loiseau was always a vehement defender of quality. He was wary of the food industry, and in his numerous television and radio appearances he was quick to bemoan the aberrations of modern farming: “We live in a period invaded by synthetic products, when tomatoes no longer even taste of tomatoes. They should be pissing blood. It is up to us chefs to save the situation.”

In order to consolidate the drawing power of his restaurant, Loiseau spent more than £2 million, not only refurbishing and building new kitchens but also adding a 32-bedroom hotel, a shop, a pool and a spa. Customers poured in, from coach tours from Germany to more discreet visits by diners such as François Mitterrand. In 1995 the President decorated Loiseau with the Légion d’honneur. The only other chef to receive this honour, from President Valéry Giscard-d’Estaing, had been Loiseau’s friend Paul Bocuse.

All of this did nothing to alleviate the financial pressure. In 1998, Loiseau managed to raise 35 million francs by taking the unprecedented step of floating his company, Groupe Loiseau Art de Vivre, on the French Stock Exchange. He also opened simpler restaurants in Paris: Tante Louise (1998), Tante Marguerite (1999) and Tante Jeanne (2000).

His picture appeared on a leading brand of frozen foods, and he became a consultant for Manotel, a Swiss brasserie chain. The latest project was a chic hotel in Toulouse, to open next year. And there were the seven cookery books that he wrote with his second wife, Dominique Brunet, a nutritionist.

For top chefs, working at full stretch is the norm. Loiseau took an almost child-like delight and pride in his success, but the strain, compounded by the recent downturn in the luxury business, had become worse in recent months. He was found dead with his hunting gun by his side last Monday.

He is survived by his wife and their three daughters.

Bernard Loiseau, chef and businessman, was born in Chamalières on January 13, 1951. He died in Saulieu on February 24, 2003, aged 52.